Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Against Erasure: Uyghur Poems, Imprisoned Souls, and the Act of Resistance
2026-03-27 16:00 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | CGIS South, Room S050, 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Aziz Isa Elkun, University of London

In the face of the Chinese government1s systemic efforts to silence the Uyghur people, the written word becomes a profound act of resistance. Against this backdrop of cultural erasure, two recently pubIished English-language poetry anthologies – Uyghur Poems and Imprisoned Souls, stand as vital testaments to love, survival, and defiance. These works serve as both a sanctuary for a threatened identity and a resonant cry for justice. Together, they form more than a mere collection of verses; they are a living archive for both the present and the future. They prove that while bodies may be confined and traditions targeted for erasure, the human pulse of love and collective memory remains indestructible. As enduring evidence of the Uyghur spirit, these works carry a cultural legacy to the next generation and awaken the consciousness of humanity as a whole, offering a glimmer of hope for the future.

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Butchered Rooms: Precarity, Resilience, and the Politics of Informal Housing in Post-Handover Hong Kong
2026-03-31 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Ruby YS LAI, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26Chair/Discussant: Ya-Wen Lei, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

In the past decades, the growing housing crisis has destabilized individual housing tenure and exacerbated an everyday sense of insecurity, especially among low-income renters in megacities, where housing costs continuously soar under increased financialization and commodification. How do individuals and families build a home while facing heightened precariousness? This talk argues that housing precarity is an outcome of inequality resulting from the macro political-economic structure rather than a condition of poverty, by focusing on one of the world’s most unaffordable housing markets, Hong Kong, and its infamous subdivided units, also called ‘butchered rooms’—a form of informal housing unit subdivided from an entire compartment, characterized by an extremely tiny size, with a median as small as 11m?. Drawing on years of ethnographic and participatory fieldwork and policy analysis, the talk first illustrates the homemaking strategies through which occupants of butchered rooms navigate the spatio-material constraints of their built environment and the processes of resilience building. The second part of the talk provides a critical analysis of the housing policy regime in Hong Kong during the post-1997 period and unravels the political-economic structures that necessitate the invisible labor of occupants that buffers the consequences of housing inequality resulting from the city’s neoliberal housing regime and developmental urban governance, which resonate with housing crises in urban areas across the globe.

Butchered Rooms: Precarity, Resilience, and the Politics of Informal Housing in Post-Handover Hong Kong

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Harvard Asia Law Conference II
2026-04-01 09:30 - 2026-04-02 19:30 | WCC, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
more information

Please join us for HALS 2026 Conference, which will take place at the WCC on Harvard Law School Campus April 1st & 2nd. This year, panels will feature topics like AI regulations across Asia, the future of US-China trade relations, practicing in-house at multinational companies, and more. Please click here for details on the full agenda, panel locations, and programming.

Please contact hals@mail.law.harvard.edu with any questions.

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What Would a Rational and Effective U.S.-China Trade Policy Look Like? Is One Still Possible?
2026-04-09 12:20 - 13:20 | WCC B015, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138
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Speaker: Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative (2021-2025)

Ambassador Katherine C. Tai served as the 19th United States Trade Representative. As a member of President Biden’s Cabinet, Ambassador Tai was the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy from March 2021 to January 2025. Prior to her unanimous Senate confirmation, Ambassador Tai spent nearly 2 decades in public service focusing on crafting, monitoring, and enforcing U.S. and international trade laws. She previously served the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives as Chief Trade Counsel and Trade Subcommittee Staff Director. She is also an experienced WTO litigator. From 2007 to 2014, Ambassador Tai developed and tried cases for USTR, eventually becoming the agency’s Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement. Ambassador Tai graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. She began her career practicing law in the private sector, clerking for federal judges in the Districts of Columbia and Maryland, and teaching English in Guangzhou, China.

A light lunch will be provided. Please register here.

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The OpenClaw Paradox: AI Agents, Labor Anxiety, and Radical Pragmatism in China
2026-04-09 16:15 - 17:30 | M-RCBG Conference Room B-102, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Lihui Zhang, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

In this study group, led by M-RCBG Senior Fellow Lihui Zhang, we will explore how Chinese society demonstrates a distinctive duality in its approach to emerging technologies like AI, combining both enthusiastic adoption and underlying anxiety. While American and European companies increasingly restrict employee access to AI tools due to security concerns, Chinese organizations have embraced such technologies nearly universally across workplaces.Paradoxically, this widespread integration occurs alongside growing public apprehension about workforce displacement. Many Chinese workers express genuine concern that AI will eventually replace human labor, creating a complex emotional landscape of excitement and fear. This tension reflects broader global conversations about technological advancement and economic transformation in the AI era. China’s unique societal response to technology is precisely what makes it a potential testing ground for how humanity can address the challenges of AI.

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Lively (linghuo) Accumulation: China’s 1980s Coastal Development Strategy and Histories of Capitalist and Socialist Crises
2026-04-13 15:45 - 17:45 | Room 125, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Andrew Liu, Associate Professor of History, Villanova University

Commentators:Ya-Wen Lei, Professor, Department of Sociology, Harvard UniversityKashish Bastola, PhD Candidate in History, Harvard University

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Machine and Sovereignty: For a Planetary Thinking
2026-04-14 16:00 - 17:15 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Yuk Hui, Erasmus UniversityModerator: David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

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Taiwan: The Politics of Difference
2026-04-15 12:00 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Anthony Hao Yeh, National Chengchi UniversityModerator: David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

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Sinophone South Studies: A Dialogue
2026-04-16 12:00 - 13:30 | Plimpton Room (133), Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speakers: Chia-rong Wu, University of CanterburyKyle Shernuk, Georgetown UniversityModerator: David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

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Taiwan Studies+ 2.0 Symposium
2026-04-17 09:30 - 17:00 | Yenching Auditorium, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
As Taiwan finds itself reentering into the global conversation today, where does the field of Taiwan Studies find itself in this historical moment? From the origins of capitalism to the threat of nuclear pollution, from soundscapes in the authoritarian era to contemporary video games, from indigenous identities to Cold War activism, and from geopolitical competition to ecological imaginations – how do we identify different moments of Taiwan’s history as key nodes of global and local processes? This symposium, now in its second iteration, seeks to bring together different generations of global Taiwan scholars, with the goal to foster new linkages and networks for a burgeoning field.

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What Does It Mean to “Write Oneself” in Tibetan Autobiographical Tradition: The Amazing Life of Guru Chowang
2026-04-22 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Geri Jiebu, Associate Professor, School of Chinese Ethnic Minority Language and Literature, Minzu University of China; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26Chair/Discussant: Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard Divinity School

What Does It Mean to “Write Oneself” in Tibetan Autobiographical Tradition: The Amazing Life of Guru Chowang

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